Part 19 (2/2)
”I'm sorry. You can't do that,” Spyder says and holds out a hand to Niki.
”Why the h.e.l.l not?”
”You've been exiled by your world. It can't take you back. The Dragon-”
”Jesus, Spyder, there is no f.u.c.king dragon!”
And then the jackals howl again, so loud they must be very near, their voices to set all the suspender cables humming, and the bridge trembles slightly beneath her feet.
”Take my hand,” Spyder says. ”They're getting close.
We're almost out of time.”
Niki looks past Spyder, and she can see something impossibly vast rus.h.i.+ng towards them across the bridge, something without shape or the faintest trace of color, only a single-minded purpose to define it. The jackals howl, and the Bay Bridge shudders and sways like a thing of string and twigs.
”The bird was telling you the truth, Niki. I can't stand against them. Now take my hand.”
163.
”What do they want with me?” Niki asks and takes a small step backwards, glancing from the formless, rolling ma.s.s of the jackals to Spyder's outstretched hand, then back to the jackals again. ”I can't hurt them. I can't hurt anyone but myself.”
”You can destroy them utterly,” Spyder replies, ”and they know it.”
”But the bird said nothing can stop them.”
”I can't force you to do this, Niki, and I can't do it for you.”
”I want to go home, Spyder. I want to wake up.”
”You're not dreaming, and you can't go home.”
Niki Ky mutters a half-remembered prayer to the Catholic G.o.d of her mother, then accepts Spyder's hand, that milk-white palm, her skin as soft as silk, but she doesn't take her eyes off the jackals. They're no more than a hundred yards away now, a hundred yards at most, and the bridge is moving so much that she's having trouble staying on her feet. The steel groans and creaks beneath them, and Niki imagines the upper level collapsing, pan-caking, cras.h.i.+ng down on the lower, eastbound tier.
”It's a long way,” Spyder says. ”A lot farther than it looks.”
”A long way to what?”
”The water,” Spyder says, and she picks up Niki's backpack with her free hand. ”The water is our pa.s.sage. The jackals can't follow us that way. They're things of earth.”
”So all we need's a firehose.”
”No, Niki. It doesn't work like that.”
And Spyder leads her quickly to the edge of the heaving bridge, to the low concrete barriers, and tells her not to look at the jackals again. So Niki looks down at the bay instead, the flat and motionless waters like a mirror, like a polished crimson gem.
”I can't swim very well,” Niki says.
”You won't have to swim, Niki. Trust me. You only have to fall.”
”I'm going to die now, aren't I?”
164.
”Everyone dies,” and Spyder smiles for her, smiling as the jackals' paws hammer the bridge like artillery fire. ”But it isn't what you think. You'll see.”
And then she helps Niki over the concrete and squeezes her left hand tight as they step off into s.p.a.ce, and gravity does the rest.
165.
Tumbling towards amethyst light.
166.
And the sound of falling water.
167.
”Don't let go of my hand,” and then she realizes that Spyder already has, and she's alone.
168.
Falling 169.
through 170.
a hole 171.
in 172.
the bottom of 173.
forever.
P A R T T W O.
Wars in Heaven Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
-Kate Bush, ”The Hounds of Love” (1985) The day you died I lost my way.
The day you died I lost my mind.
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